Milta Ortiz

Milta Ortiz, an award-winning playwright was born in El Salvador and raised in the Bay Area, she now calls Tucson home. She premiered Antigona 3.0 with Borderlands Theater ensemble in Spring 2024. They will take their devised piece on the road in fall 2024. Her musical Anita, in collaboration with composer Quetzal Guerrero has received development support from the NEA, One Nation One Project, NET, and NALAC Border Narrative Change grant and has been showcased at Borderlands Theater, Childsplay at Phoenix College, University of Arizona Theatre Department and Latine Musical Theatre Lab. She directed The Candy Craze: A Sticky Situation at Pima Community College in October 2023, a play she facilitated Pima students in writing, the second installment of a TYA ongoing project. Milta was a 2020...

Milta Ortiz, an award-winning playwright was born in El Salvador and raised in the Bay Area, she now calls Tucson home. She premiered Antigona 3.0 with Borderlands Theater ensemble in Spring 2024. They will take their devised piece on the road in fall 2024. Her musical Anita, in collaboration with composer Quetzal Guerrero has received development support from the NEA, One Nation One Project, NET, and NALAC Border Narrative Change grant and has been showcased at Borderlands Theater, Childsplay at Phoenix College, University of Arizona Theatre Department and Latine Musical Theatre Lab. She directed The Candy Craze: A Sticky Situation at Pima Community College in October 2023, a play she facilitated Pima students in writing, the second installment of a TYA ongoing project. Milta was a 2020-21 Projecting All Voices Mellon fellow at Arizona State University, where she incubated Anita and solo play What Are You? In October 2022, she directed Ballet & Bagels, a TYA play she facilitated her students in writing at Pima Community College. Her play, Pilar and Paloma was part of Launchpad’s 2021 Bipoc Reading Series Festival. Judge Torres, commissioned and produced by Milagro Theatre Group, toured nationally to universities (2019-2020). Milta is Associate Artistic Director at Borderlands Theater, where a few of her plays, including Sanctuary (2018) and Más (2015) have world premiered. Borderlands’ production of Más toured Arizona universities in the 2016-17 season. Más was produced at Ubuntu Theatre Project/Laney College (2016), Su Teatro (2017), and San Diego State University (2018). She devised, wrote and directed Solving for X for the Working Classroom in the 2016/2017 season. Other produced plays include the 21st, 20th, 19th, and 18th Annual A Tucson Pastorela, Sonoran Shadows, Disengaged, Fleeing Blue and solo play Scatter My Red Underwear. She earned an MFA from Northwestern University, and a BA from San Francisco State University. She is proud to serve on the National New Play Network board of directors.

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Scripts

Pilar and Paloma

by Milta Ortiz

Cast Size
8—9
Genre
drama,
fable/folktale,
movement/physical

After the newly built wall, Desert mourns her fallen Saguaros as Lupe rushes to get across the border. One mother’s grieving ripens another’s pregnancy and Zuri steps in to help Lupe’s twins. In a hurry, Zuri breaks desert convention and years later they must face the consequences.

After the newly built wall, Desert mourns her fallen Saguaros as Lupe rushes to get across the border. One mother’s grieving ripens another’s pregnancy and Zuri steps in to help Lupe’s twins. In a hurry, Zuri breaks desert convention and years later they must face the consequences.

Sanctuary

by Milta Ortiz

2
Cast Size
7
Genre
drama,
political

When Carol and Micha find out about detained Salvadorans fleeing civil war, they set out to process political asylum applications. After meeting Victor, a Salvadoran in a Border Patrol detention center, they realize that they're going to need help. They call on Father Hartford who meets Nidia, a Salvadoran with strong opinions at another detention center. Micha and Carol enlist Jeff Chord, who sits on the...

When Carol and Micha find out about detained Salvadorans fleeing civil war, they set out to process political asylum applications. After meeting Victor, a Salvadoran in a Border Patrol detention center, they realize that they're going to need help. They call on Father Hartford who meets Nidia, a Salvadoran with strong opinions at another detention center. Micha and Carol enlist Jeff Chord, who sits on the National Presbyterian Council and before long Quaker Will Hewitt joins the group with ideas of his own. But Nidia and Victor are on opposite sides of the war, the number of detained Salvadorans keeps growing, and the group has to come to terms with their personal issues, and choose between the law of man and the law of God.

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Más

by Milta Ortiz

3
Cast Size
8
Genre
docudrama/historic,
political

Based on a true story. A community struggles to hold onto their history, identity, and humanity as they fight to save Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District.

Based on a true story. A community struggles to hold onto their history, identity, and humanity as they fight to save Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District.

Disengaged

by Milta Ortiz

2
Cast Size
9—11
Genre
drama,
young audiences

Follows the lives of seven high schoolers as they struggle to attend and stay in school. (Based on source material: story circles with youth and educator interviews on the drop out crisis in Phoenix.)

Follows the lives of seven high schoolers as they struggle to attend and stay in school. (Based on source material: story circles with youth and educator interviews on the drop out crisis in Phoenix.)

You, Me, and Tuno

by Milta Ortiz

Cast Size
7
Genre
drama

You, Me, and Tuno is a poetic journey that questions relationships and place in the search for home. Marisol, Luna and Tuno venture out of their opportunity desert hood, to the aisles of “Real Foods” to taste a pomegranate.

You, Me, and Tuno is a poetic journey that questions relationships and place in the search for home. Marisol, Luna and Tuno venture out of their opportunity desert hood, to the aisles of “Real Foods” to taste a pomegranate.